Saturday, March 31, 2012

Not-So-Smooth Operator

Obama increasingly comes across as devious and dishonest.

By PEGGY NOONAN

THE WALL STREET JOURNAl

MARCH 31, 2012

Something's
happening to President Obama's relationship with those who are inclined
not to like his policies. They are now inclined not to like him. His
supporters would say, "Nothing new there," but actually I think there
is. I'm referring to the broad, stable, nonradical, non-birther right.
Among them the level of dislike for the president has ratcheted up
sharply the past few months.It's not due to the election, and it's
not because the Republican candidates are so compelling and making such
brilliant cases against him. That, actually, isn't happening.

What is happening is that the
president is coming across more and more as a trimmer, as an operator
who's not operating in good faith. This is hardening positions and
leading to increased political bitterness. And it's his fault, too. As
an increase in polarization is a bad thing, it's a big fault.

The
shift started on Jan. 20, with the mandate that agencies of the Catholic
Church would have to provide birth-control services the church finds
morally repugnant. The public reaction? "You're kidding me. That's not
just bad judgment and a lack of civic tact, it's not even
constitutional!" Faced with the blowback, the president offered a
so-called accommodation that even its supporters recognized as devious.
Not ill-advised, devious. Then his operatives flooded the airwaves with
dishonest—not wrongheaded, dishonest—charges that those who defend the
church's religious liberties are trying to take away your
contraceptives.

What a sour taste this all left. How
shocking it was, including for those in the church who'd been in touch
with the administration and were murmuring about having been misled.Events of just the past 10 days have
contributed to the shift. There was the open-mic conversation with
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in which Mr. Obama pleaded for "space"
and said he will have "more flexibility" in his negotiations once the
election is over and those pesky voters have done their thing. On tape
it looked so bush-league, so faux-sophisticated. When he knew he'd been
caught, the president tried to laugh it off by comically covering a mic
in a following meeting. It was all so . . . creepy.

Related Video

Best of the Web columnist James Taranto on whether voters who favored Obama in 2008 think the President is naÃ¯ve.

Next, a boy of
17 is shot and killed under disputed and unclear circumstances. The
whole issue is racially charged, emotions are high, and the only
memorable words from the president's response were, "If I had a son he'd
look like Trayvon." At first it seemed OK—not great, but all right—but
as the story continued and suddenly there were death threats and tweeted
addresses and congressmen in hoodies, it seemed insufficient to the
moment. At the end of the day, the public reaction seemed to be: "Hey
buddy, we don't need you to personalize what is already too dramatic,
it's not about you." Now this week the Supreme Court
arguments on ObamaCare, which have made that law look so hollow, so
careless, that it amounts to a characterological indictment of the
administration. The constitutional law professor from the University of
Chicago didn't notice the centerpiece of his agenda was not
constitutional? How did that happen?

Maybe a stinging decision is coming,
maybe not, but in a purely political sense this is how it looks: We were
in crisis in 2009—we still are—and instead of doing something strong
and pertinent about our economic woes, the president wasted history's
time. He wasted time that was precious—the debt clock is still
ticking!—by following an imaginary bunny that disappeared down a rabbit
hole. The high court's hearings gave off an overall air not of political misfeasance but malfeasance. All these things have hardened lines of opposition, and left opponents with an aversion that will not go away.

I am not saying that the president has a
terrible relationship with the American people. I'm only saying he's
made his relationship with those who oppose him worse.

In terms of the broad electorate, I'm
not sure he really has a relationship. A president only gets a year or
two to forge real bonds with the American people. In that time a crucial
thing he must establish is that what is on his mind is what is on their
mind. This is especially true during a crisis. From the day Mr. Obama was sworn in,
what was on the mind of the American people was financial
calamity—unemployment, declining home values, foreclosures. These issues
came within a context of some overarching questions: Can America
survive its spending, its taxing, its regulating, is America over, can
we turn it around?

That's what the American people were thinking about.

But the new president wasn't thinking
about that. All the books written about the creation of economic policy
within his administration make clear the president and his aides didn't
know it was so bad, didn't understand the depth of the crisis, didn't
have a sense of how long it would last. They didn't have their mind on
what the American people had their mind on.

The president had his mind on health
care. And, to be fair-minded, health care was part of the economic
story. But only a part! And not the most urgent part. Not the most
frightening, distressing, immediate part. Not the "Is America over?"
part.

And so the relationship the president
wanted never really knitted together. Health care was like the
birth-control mandate: It came from his hermetically sealed inner
circle, which operates with what seems an almost entirely abstract sense
of America. They know Chicago, the machine, the ethnic realities. They
know Democratic Party politics. They know the books they've read,
largely written by people like them—bright, credentialed, intellectually
cloistered. But there always seems a lack of lived experience among
them, which is why they were so surprised by the town hall uprisings of
August 2009 and the 2010 midterm elections.

If you jumped
into a time machine to the day after the election, in November, 2012,
and saw a headline saying "Obama Loses," do you imagine that would be
followed by widespread sadness, pain and a rending of garments? You do
not. Even his own supporters will not be that sad. It's hard to imagine
people running around in 2014 saying, "If only Obama were president!"
Including Mr. Obama, who is said by all who know him to be deeply
competitive, but who doesn't seem to like his job that much. As a former
president he'd be quiet, detached, aloof. He'd make speeches and write a
memoir laced with a certain high-toned bitterness. It was the
Republicans' fault. They didn't want to work with him.

He will likely not see even then that
an American president has to make the other side work with him. You
think Tip O'Neill liked Ronald Reagan? You think he wanted to give him
the gift of compromise? He was a mean, tough partisan who went to work
every day to defeat Ronald Reagan.

But forced by facts and numbers to
deal, he dealt. So did Reagan. An American president has to make cooperation happen. But we've strayed from the point. Mr.
Obama has a largely nonexistent relationship with many, and a worsening
relationship with some.

Really, he cannot win the coming
election. But the Republicans, still, can lose it. At this point in the
column we usually sigh.

A version of this article appeared Mar. 31,
2012, on page A13 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with
the headline: Not-So-Smooth Operator.

Rick
Santorum today suggested it would be better to stick with President
Obama over a candidate that might be "the Etch A Sketch candidate of the
future" -- a shot at chief rival Mitt Romney.

"You win by
giving people the opportunity to see a different vision for our country,
not someone who's just going to be a little different than the person
in there," said Santorum. "If you're going to be a little different, we
might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk with what
may be the etch a sketch candidate of the future."

In response, Mitt Romney issued a statement criticizing Santorum.

"I
am in this race to defeat Barack Obama and restore America's promise,"
Romney said. "I was disappointed to hear that Rick Santorum would rather
have Barack Obama as president than a Republican. This election is more
important than any one person. It is about the future of America.

"Any of the Republicans running would be better than President Obama and his record of failure," he added.

Whom
does this statement help? For starters, does Santorum really believe
it? Are we really to believe that if, as it appears likely at this
point, Mitt Romney is the GOP nominee, Rick Santorum would not vote,
leave the ballot blank, or vote for some third-party candidate? (We know
he won't be voting Libertarian.) Really? You want to lead the
Republican party, but you won't commit to supporting the party's nominee
in November if it's not you?

"Take a risk with the Etch A Sketch candidate of the future"? Just how risky does he think a second term of Obama would be?

There's something that's been bugging me about the Etch A Sketch
metaphor that allegedly wounds Romney so badly. The central feature of
the Etch A Sketch is its impermanence: It displays an image of
something, and the image disappears once shaken. But the criticism of
impermanence is different from the criticism implied by, say, "a wolf in
sheep's clothing." There, the charge is that a candidate appears to be
one thing, but is another thing entirely. The candidate cannot be the
sheep because his true nature is that of the wolf. But an Etch A Sketch
displays whatever you want it to display. Sure, if it displays something
you like, you shouldn't grow attached to it, because after a few shakes
it will be gone. But that also applies to the images you don't like.
Calling Romney an Etch A Sketch is comparing him to the weather in
Chicago: If you don't like it, just wait, because it will change
quickly. In this metaphor, a President Romney would please
conservatives, then displease them, then please them, then displease
them, etc. That's not something terribly appealing, but it's also not
what we're getting right now from our current president. Right now we're
getting a seemingly endless cavalcade of outrages, insults, excuses,
sneers, and rounds of golf.

None of this is to say it's really
good for a candidate to be compared to an Etch A Sketch. But it feels as
if some political observers are reacting as if it's the most
devastating comparison ever when it really isn't. I mean, you could say
every Etch A Sketch image comes with an expiration date or something. The idea of political figures doing what's expedient is . . . not exactly unprecedented.

(Oh, one other wrinkle in this comparison? Almost everybody loves the
Etch A Sketch. Almost everybody remembers it, almost everybody had one,
and almost everybody laughs at how hard it was to draw anything with
just horizontal and vertical lines. Why do you think the stock jumped?
Nostalgia.)

How far out was this statement? Well, exhibit A:

Newt Gingrich: "Rick Santorum is dead wrong. Any GOP nominee will be better than Obama."

It’s not the wasps, bees and mosquitos, though stingers all, that bedevil presidential candidates. It’s the fruit flies. Insignificant in their own right, they nevertheless have the ability to damage and even sink a campaign.

That’s the lesson for Mitt Romney, as taught by Eric Fehrnstrom, his once-anonymous “top aide” who confided to a CNN interviewer that Mr. Romney is not really a born-again conservative, that he’s only pandering to the unwashed crazies on the right. As soon as he locks up the nomination, he’ll hit the re-set button to emerge as the RINO – Republican in name only – he really is, to appeal to independent voters. Mr. Fehrnstrom didn’t say it quite like that (fruit flies never light long enough to make anything clear), but that’s the clear message he intended to send.

In case he had not left a strong-enough sabotage of Mitt Romney’s courtship of the unwashed, Mr. Fehrnstrom, feeling his self-importance, made sure no one could miss his point: “I think you hit the re-set button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch-a-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.

Mr. Romney knew at once there was a problem, potentially such a game-changer that he overcame his reluctance to talk to reporters and emerged to offer an explanation, sort of. He talked in the marketing-speak dear to CEOs and business-school professors. He explained the obvious, that “organizationally” a general-election effort is very different from a primary campaign. Staffs are larger and the focus is on raising money (isn’t it always?).

Then he lapsed into the boilerplate that raises the hackles of the evangelicals and the tea-party partisans who can’t quite take Mitt Romney at his word. “I am running as a conservative Republican,” he said. If he had someone on his staff conversant in precise English, he would have been warned to avoid the words “running as a conservative,” because that’s exactly what the unwashed think he’s doing. He plowed on: “I was a conservative Republican governor. I will be running as a conservative Republican nominee, at that point hopefully for president. The policies and positions are the same.”

His usually happy face did not radiate much happiness, and he seemed to understand that he was not persuading anyone that he was angry about the undisciplined fruit fly infestation. He could have emphasized how seriously he was taking the subverting of his message by swatting and sacking the guilty fruit fly on the spot. He didn’t, and leaves Republican voters with the impression that maybe the offense was not so great, after all. Maybe it would only be a two-day media sensation. Maybe it would be forgotten by week’s end.

Or maybe not. Rick Santorum’s press spokesman hurried out to say the obvious, that the top aide’s remark “confirms what a lot of conservatives have been afraid of. He used to be pro-abortion, he used to be pro-gay marriage, he used to be pro-Wall Street bailouts, he used to [embrace] the climate-change [scam].”

A feast of the most succulent bowl of fruit, lush mangoes, ripe pears, and bananas at their peak, can be spoiled by the tiny squeak and flutter of an ambitious fruit fly in heat. The night of the Illinois primary was just such a feast for Mitt Romney. He had won the most telling primary of the season, falling just short of his first majority this year, and he gave his best speech of the season. He put the campaign focus on Barack Obama, his mismanagement of the economy, his clumsy adventures abroad and his dismal misunderstanding of what makes America exceptional.

The greatness of America begins with a dream, “and nothing is more fragile than a dream. The genius of America is that we nurture those dreams and dreamers. We honor them. That’s part of what is uniquely brilliant about America. But day-by-day job-killing regulation, bureaucrat by bureaucrat, this president is crushing the dream and the dreamers, and I will make sure that finally ends.” Here was a touch of poetry that might have come from the Gipper himself, a tribute to the America that was and must be again.

Mitt Romney looks ever more like the inevitable nominee. He has nearly half of the 1,144 delegates he will need in Tampa. He got an important endorsement from Jeb Bush this week. Tea-party organizations are finally coming around, persuaded that he’s the conservative who can beat Barack Obama. If only he can control the fruit fly.

He’s always reaching for something new to feed his ravenous ego, now that age has withered, among other things, his ravenous libido.

He has persuaded the real-estate hustlers, small-town hucksters and dime-store merchants who mismanage things in Little Rock to rename the municipal airport to carry his name – and Miss Hillary’s, of course – unto the next millennium. Or at least until someone else runs things.

The Little Rock Airport Commission has been trying to clean up, or at least hide, scandal and mismanagement. Now the commission thinks it would be cool to erase the name of a hometown Air National Guard pilot killed in the line of duty, which has adorned the airport for 75 years, and replace it with the name of the nation’s most celebrated draft-dodger.

Adams Field would become the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport, though neither Bonnie nor Clod is even from Little Rock. Hillary’s a yankee to boot. Capt. George Geyer Adams, the dumpee, was born into an old Little Rock family and was a National Guard pilot who died when a propeller exploded in his face. The airport was named to honor him on the eve of World War II, when sacrifice in arms was valued above all else, and celebrity was mere afterthought.

The press agent for the airport commission – Hillary was once the commission’s lawyer – insists that the idea “originated” with the commission, and only after that did the commission “reach out” to the Clintons on “appropriate naming options.” Nobody in Little Rock believes that. Bonnie and Clod have tried for years to get the airport named for one or the other of them, and the commission concedes that a sketch for the new airport sign, to be bathed in a blue light reminiscent of the Hot Springs bordellos of Bubba’s youth, was some time ago submitted to Bubba and the missus for their approval.

Bubba is worried that he will eventually be remembered only as a stain on a little blue dress or as a president impeached for lying under oath, since the impeachment trial was the highlight of his eight years in the White House. Worse, perhaps, he was not even the first president to be impeached. He has to share that distinction through the ages with a president who hung out with Republicans. The ignominy of it.

Nobody has ever accused the Clintons of good taste and a cultured sense of occasion and propriety, and not everyone in Little Rock is happy about switching such a signal honor from military hero to draft-dodger. “A pretty high-handed bunch runs things here,” a prominent Democratic lawyer from an old-line family says, begging anonymity. “Mike Huckabee once described Arkansas as a banana republic, and maybe that was harsh, because he was talking mostly about Little Rock. The good ol’ boys think Bubba is good for business.”

Bubba and his pals stirred up folks several years ago when he tried to get Markham Street, one of the longest and most prominent streets in town, renamed President Clinton Avenue. He finally settled for a small stretch of the street which runs a few blocks through a lively riverfront honkytonk district to his new presidential library, perched above the south bank of the Arkansas River like an imposing double-wide mobile home lifted out of a trailer park. The architect who designed it clearly had a taste for wit and irony.

The good ol’ boys take good care of each other. Last year Ron Mathieu, the executive director of the airport, allocated $40,000 to the private school his son attended to pay for a new surface on the football field. The airport in return was to get an advertisement painted on the grass. The stink that followed forced the return of the money, and Mr. Mathieu was denied a pay raise. This year the commission raised his pay and gave him a $10,000 bonus.

The good ol’ boys fear a new controversy once the public gets on to the dumping of Capt. Adams to make room for interlopers and outlanders. The airport spokesman says the renaming is meant to celebrate four new gates and ticketing and baggage-handling improvements. And there’s finally going to be a direct flight from Little Rock to Reagan National Airport in Washington, to “serve as a unique and symbolic link between two of our nation’s great presidential administrations.” Better honor by association than no honor at all.

Monday, March 19, 2012

The GOP's Candidates and Who Would Do the Best Job

There
is massive media coverage about the GOP's candidates and their
pontification. Their is no lack of opinion from the political pundits.
The history of these debates and primaries have shown the
unpredictability of these proceedings. One day's unknown underdog is
suddenly today's top gun. Just as quickly though there can be a clear
leader who by a quick stroke of misfortune has to fall out of the race.

It
is amazing to watch all these candidates put forth their best
description of themselves and the careers in the private sector and
politics. You have to admit that there has to be some truths in their
claims to qualify for the presidential office based on their body of
work. The media and the technology that accompanies it will make mince
meat out of a candidate that somehow has the temerity to concoct stories
in their resumes. Oh what a firestorm in the national media if for some
reason your name makes it to the ballot and they find out that you have
been lying on your curriculum vitae.

So even if the person is
the most qualified there is the possibility that they may never make it
to the presidential elections. I am pretty sure this has happened before
and it will happen again So if I may be so bold let me side step the
question of who will ultimately win the election. Just let me declare
who I think will do the best job.

Let us address the candidates
and try to access them as effectively as we can. Let us start with Mitt
Romney who as we know has wonderful ideas for the economy. I even
believe he would be a capable man in handling our foreign affairs. He is
being touted by some polls as the leading candidate based on the latest
results from Iowa. However we already know how out of touch he is with
the common man. That $10,000 dollar bet might have wiped him out.
Michelle Bachmann as we can see can hold her end against the leaders
Mitt and Newt. As much as sometimes the other debaters condescendingly
put her down as just a peripheral candidate she has held her own. The
website Politifact though seems to think at one time that 59% of her
claims were inaccurate. Paul,Huntsman, Santorum and Perry are all very
distinguished gentlemen and again quite capable.

The one that is
most capable of running the country in my humble opinion is Newt
Gingrich. Mind you may I disclose that I am not a big fan of the man. If
it was up to me I would outright appoint Ron Paul
for president. Here are my reasons though for picking Newt. First he
has tons of experience. In this job experience does count. He has served
as Speaker. He has also cheated on his wife. However he repented of his
actions and rather than gloss over his indiscretions. He has shown
persistence. This quality is a must for the presidency. Any married
person you talk to knows that getting married is easy. Staying married
however requires hard work. Despite and because of that I gauge him
electable by the American public. We love our comeback heroes as long as
they are contrite in accepting their past wrongs. The truth is there is
probably some dark side hidden away by each candidate. Let us be
reminded that it is still human nature we are dealing with. If
everything was transparent none of the candidates will ever qualify for
anything.

That last statement about Newt's marriage can be
construed as a negative but I believe it is really now a positive. We
Americans respect the bad boy that recovers from the battle. Yes he is
scarred but we consider those scars as just speaking points to be used
in teaching our grandchildren the finer points in life and living.

The Republicans better hope their best candidate comes out of this process. For their sake I hope it is the Newt.

On the health-insurance mandate, Romney plays both sides

THEY SAY all things must end, but the
wrangling over Mitt Romney's support for an individual health-insurance
mandate persists without letup.

It has been nearly six years since Romney,
with much fanfare, signed the Massachusetts health-care overhaul into
law. On the eve of the signing ceremony he had praised the bill's
requirement that every resident obtain health insurance, and suggested
with pride that the rest of the nation might want to follow the Bay
State's lead. "How much of our health-care plan applies to other
states?" he wrote in The Wall Street Journal. "A lot."

It was a message he would reiterate time and again.

"I'm proud of what we've done," Romney told a Baltimore audience
in February 2007. "If Massachusetts succeeds in implementing it, then
that will be a model for the nation." In Iowa that summer, he waxed
enthusiastic about the new law and its mandate: "We have to have our
citizens insured," he insisted. "What you have to do is what we did in Massachusetts. Is it perfect? No. But we say, let's rely on personal responsibility.... No more free rides."

In the spring of 2009, as congressional
debate over ObamaCare intensified, Romney was asked on CNN's "State of
the Union" whether his 2006 law was a good model for the nation. His
answer: "Well, I think so!" A few weeks later he again touted the Massachusetts scheme
for "getting every citizen insured" as one Washington should heed:
"Using tax penalties, as we did … encourages 'free riders' to take
responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to
others. "

If anything should be uncontested by now,
it is Romney's faith in the wisdom of a Massachusetts-style mandate for
health insurance. Yet the debate rages on.

Rick Santorum last week accused Romney of not telling the truth
when he claimed "that somehow or other he was not for mandates on a
federal level." Romney's spokeswoman fired back, accusing Santorum of
"exaggerations and falsehoods," and avowing that her boss never backed a
federal individual mandate. The Democratic National Committee weighed
in with an ad mocking Romney as being "against individual mandates -- except when he's for them." Glenn Kessler
cried foul in The Washington Post, noting that Romney has often
expressed support for a state-by-state approach to health insurance.
Nonsense, replied Reason magazine's Peter Suderman.
"If you look at [Romney's] record, it's hard to conclude that he did
not support copying the Massachusetts plan at the federal level,
including the mandate."

What's really going on here, it seems to
me, is not disagreement over what Romney has said, but a quarrel over
what he believes. No one disputes that he has praised RomneyCare's
individual mandate, extolled it as "conservative,"
and pronounced it a success lawmakers elsewhere should emulate. Nor is
there any doubt that he has repeatedly invoked the value of state-by-state reforms.
Romney often draws a distinction between a state-level mandate like the
one imposed in Massachusetts and the unconstitutional mandate imposed
nationally by ObamaCare.

But the problem has never been that Romney yearns to force a Massachusetts-style insurance mandate on the nation.It's whether he still thinks such mandates are a good idea.
"When it's all said and done," he told Tim Russert in December 2007,
"after all these states that are the laboratories of democracy … try
their own plans, those who follow the path that we pursued will find
it's the best path, and we'll end up with a nation that's taken a
mandate approach." Romney has never disavowed that attitude. And for
many liberty-minded GOP voters, that's not a minor issue.

RomneyCare grows steadily more onerous -- the annual penalty for not buying health insurance in Massachusetts now runs as high as $1,260. ObamaCare remains far from popular.
Naturally Romney now prefers to emphasize the part of his health-care
plan that would let states decide these issues for themselves. And to be
sure, a president who respected federalism would be an improvement.

But far better would be a president who understood that it is not government's job at any
level to coax or compel everyone to get medical insurance. Better yet
would be a president who resisted, instead of encouraging, our
overreliance on insurance to pay for routine health care. Romney salutes
free-market principles, yet he continues to hail RomneyCare as a
success. The two positions are incompatible. So long as Romney lays
claim to both, the wrangling over what he really believes will never
end.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Gingrich's Next Move

It was unbelievable: As soon as Newt Gingrich failed to win both
Alabama and Mississippi in the GOP race for president, most members of
the mainstream media and political strategists with whom I talked
readily admitted, off the record, that he was the most qualified among
the Republican candidates to serve as president.

Now these are objective
pros that have been around presidential politics for years. I have no
doubt they were telling me the truth because these folks only tell you
this stuff when it is relatively clear that the candidate is no longer a
viable alternative.

The Gingrich campaign is pushing the concept that, by staying in
the contest, Speaker Gingrich could help take away enough delegates to
deprive Mitt Romney the numbers needed to have the GOP nomination locked
up by the time the candidates reach the convention in Tampa, Fla.
Obviously, as a lifelong friend of Gingrich's, I am not going to argue
with their decision to press forward. Their frustration is that their
candidate knows more about foreign policy and defense matters in his
little finger than the other two leading candidates know in their entire
body. It is likely they find it incredible that a man who could
outdebate Barack Obama in virtually any format is now in this
predicament. I don't blame them if they feel this way.

But the reality is that no camp agrees with any other camp's
delegate math. Romney, who has spent a fortune to amass his delegates,
believes the numbers suggest that he will have no problem locking the
nomination up by or before the last contested state. And that may well
be true. The fact that Romney continues to gather delegates in areas he
himself considers "away games" suggests that his staying power might
just deliver a requisite number of delegates before the convention. It
could be a tiny margin, and it will have cost not just tons of money,
but the support of candidates who have taken his multimillion-dollar
"carpet bombing" in the various states very personally.

As for Santorum, his camp believes their best chance is for
Gingrich to exit stage left and allow there to become a consolidation of
"conservative" voters who, by their calculations, would leave Romney
pulling his usual 35 percent in most states and give Santorum huge wins
in critical upcoming contests.

That sounds great for Santorum, but it might not work out as
planned. Unless Santorum received an outright endorsement from Gingrich,
a portion of Newt's votes might stray to Romney. Analysis of polling
shows that Gingrich does well among longtime Republicans who consider
themselves conservative. Those supporters might embrace Romney as an
alternative.

The truth is no one knows what will happen. But for my friend
Newt there are certain things I hope will take place. First, I hope that
if the money starts to truly disappear, he will scale his efforts back
appropriately. That does not necessarily mean leaving the race, but it
does mean picking and choosing battles and making sure that the end
result of those battles will not be disastrous. The second thing I hope
he will do is start to put aside any personal feelings he might have
toward any of his fellow candidates. It appears he is well on his way as
to Santorum. But it is also clear that the path toward and relationship
with Romney seems rocky.

And really, who has the responsibility to repair that
relationship? The answer is Mitt Romney. If Romney's math is right and
he does get the GOP nomination, he is insane to believe that followers
of Gingrich or Santorum will flock to the polls to support him. He would
need Gingrich, Santorum, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann
on his team to have a prayer of not repeating a "John McCain, Part Two."
Oh, and add to that Sarah Palin, whose voice has only been made
stronger in recent weeks.

No, I would not ask Newt to leave the race. I have seen his
seemingly impossible schemes work too many times. But what I would ask
of the other two major GOP candidates would be to show this man some
damn respect. He has earned it, and they will need him in November ...
if not sooner.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

!!!!It is more than ironic that the story that the main stream media, both print and electronic, in the United States refuses to touch with the proverbial "ten foot pole" is given headline treatment in the independent Russian newspaper Pravda.Here is the Pravda story:........................................................................................................

PRAVDA

Arizona sheriff finds Obama presidential qualifications forged

A singularly remarkable event has taken place in the United States of America. This event occurred in Arizona on March 1st and was an earth shattering revelation.

A long awaited press conference was given by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio,
a five time elected Sheriff, which should have made national and
international headlines. Arpaio's credentials include serving in the
United States Army from 1950 to 1953, service as a federal narcotics
agent serving in countries all over the world with the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Agency (DEA), and served as the head of the Arizona DEA.
Without doubt, this is a serious Law Enforcement Officer, not one to be
taken in by tin-foil-hat wearing loons.

Yet, in the five days since his
revelations there has been little in the way of serious reporting on the
findings he presented in his presser. With 6 short videos, the Sheriff and his team presented a devastating case, one the tame US press is apparently unable to report.

On April 27, 2011,
President Barack walked into the White House Press room with a Cheshire
cat like grin and a "Long Form Birth Certificate" from the State of
Hawaii in hand. From the podium in the press room,
Mr. Obama said, "We're not going to be able to solve our problems if we
get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers,". Quite the barb from
a man holding a forged document.

That's right, forged.

The president himself created the scene;
one filled laughter from an adoring press corp., a scene of
unprecedented fanfare while holding a forged document which was later
posted on the White House website. This was the news Sheriff Arpaio
revealed on March 1, 2012 in Arizona.

Arpaio asserts that his investigators
discovered, during a 6 month long investigation which is ongoing, not
only was the "Long Form" likely a digitally created forgery, but the
presidents Selective Service Card (Draft Card), allegedly filed in 1980,
was also a forgery. These documents are what Barack Hussein Obama
relies upon to prove his constitutional eligibility to the office of
President of the United States.

Forged documents are being used to
qualify a President of the United States for the office he holds. Or is
usurped the more accurate term?

The silence from the main stream media
in the US is deafening. It almost seems as if the press is terrified to
even think the question, let alone ask it: Is the President a criminal?
The press in Arpaio's audience were certainly asking him to state
precisely that, yet nowhere has the question been asked of the White
House by the press. Instead the American Press is aggressively
protecting the presumed President of the United States, pushing the
fraud upon both America and the world, supporting a man who may well
have usurped the office.

For months before Mr. Obama released the April 2011 forgery, American businessman Donald Trump
had been demanding that the president show the country definitive proof
that he was born in the state of Hawaii, and eligible for the Office of
President. The birth certificate forgery which was presented by Mr.
Obama was in response to the repeated public requests from the
billionaire businessman.

One can easily imagine the reaction of the press had this scenario been about George W. Bush in 2004.

On the contrary, the press itself forged documents regarding the 43rd President: Long term CBS newsman Dan Rather
lost his credibility along with his job when he presented forged Air
National Guard documents allegedly denigrating the president's service
in the 1970's. One can imagine the glee evidence presented by law
enforcement officials of a real forgery made by President Bush would
have generated. The press feeding frenzy would have eclipsed that of
Watergate, the most controversial political event in modern America
history which led to the resignation of President Nixon in August of
1974.

The questions in the White House Press room would have been merciless to say the very least.

What has been the response from the Obama era press?

Silence.

Silence so loud it can be felt.

What has been the response from the 44th president so far?

A tweet
from Obama Campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt, containing a link to
the conspiracy theory television show "The X-files" theme song: a
mocking, Saul Alinsky like, retort.

High Crimes and Misdemeanors appear to
have been committed by the President of the United States or his
personal representatives in presenting a forged document to the press
and the Nation as a legitimate document, and this information has been
delivered from Law Enforcement Officials.

Arpaio refused to take the bait offered
by a clearly hostile press in the conference room. He refused to accuse
the president directly, instead informing the world that they had a
"person of interest" in the forgery, and were continuing with the
investigation.

Where is the outrage from the press??

As surreal as this is, it isn't the main event. It's only a part of a larger story.

Citizenship

Years before the 2008 election, Barack
Obama was involved in efforts to amend the US Constitution to allowthose
who were born to parents who were not citizens to become President
along with those born overseas. Those efforts have occurred several
times in recent history, and all have failed. It must be intelligently
asked why this was a concern at all for the then Senator.

There are two reasons for Obama's concern. The first lay in Article 2 section 1 of the constitution which states:
"No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United
States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be
eligible to the office of President,".

Except for Barack Obama.

The second reason for Obama's concern lies in the Supreme Court of the United States case Minor V. Happersett (88 U.S. 162) 1875 which defines Natural Born Citizen:

"The Constitution does not, in words,
say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to
ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the
framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all
children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became
themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or
natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners."
Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 168.

This U.S. Supreme Court case decided that Virginia Minor, the plaintiff, could not use the 14th
Amendment to claim citizenship and the right to vote because she was a
Natural Born Citizen, and therefor unable to lay claim to the statutory
citizenship the 14th Amendment gave to former slaves, which
included their right to vote. This is the only U.S. Supreme Court case
in the history of the United States to clearly define what a Natural
Born Citizen is. It has been cited in dozens of cases since.

This is an issue which cannot be brushed
aside by Mr. Obama. His father, Barack Obama Sr. was a student from the
British Commonwealth of Kenya, a British Citizen who never sought to
become a US Citizen, and indeed was eventually forced to leave the
country. Mr. Obama has only one parent who was an American Citizen.
Obama clearly does not meet the requirements of Natural Born Citizen as
defined by the Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett.

The Founding Fathers, the men who wrote
the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, discussed these
very reasons why no person of divided loyalties, divided nationalities,
should ever have command of America's armed forces. Dozens of letters
and many debates in the constitutional conventions recorded these
concerns, always returning the "Law of Nations",
Emerich De Vattel's encyclopedic record of the laws civilized nations
had developed over two thousand years of which the founders were clearly
aware of in their debates:

"The citizens are the members of the
civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to
its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives,
or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who
are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself
otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally
follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their
rights."

E. De Vattel 1758 Sec 212 Ch19

Vattel's definition has been accepted
since the days the United States was still a motley collection of
British Colonies. It has been accepted in no less that 3 Supreme Court
Cases, has been accepted in testimony before the U.S. House of
Representatives. It is by no means an original source; only recently dug
out of dusty tomes in 2008. Indeed, this concept is enshrined in every
Nation the world over. Every nation not only accepts, but has enshrined
this concept: a person born to two parents who were citizens of that
nation and born on its soil was a natural born citizen of that nation.

After his rousing 2004 speech at the
Democrat National Convention, Barack Obama was considered a shoe-in for
running for president in 2008, and indeed his campaign began that night
in Boston.
Yet his citizenship was a serious obstacle to his ambitions, and the
ambitions of the liberal progressive movement which supported him.

So the efforts to obfuscate Obama's
citizenship issues began in earnest. The plan was deviously simple, make
certain that people focused on his Hawaiian documents, and minimize the
visibility of Minor V. Happersett and Citizenship to the public.

The State of Hawaii

The state of Hawaii's role in this
cannot be neglected for several reasons. Hawaii has a couple of legal
Achilles heels of its own.

It was well known at the time, that any
person could register the birth of a child in the state on a late form
with only the signature of a witness (Hawaii Department of Health no
longer uses this form). This means of obtaining Hawaiian documents was
used frequently by immigrants who needed assistance from the state (such
as welfare), and Hawaii needed the federal dollars registering those
births brought to the state. Second, and perhaps most importantly,
Federal laws with regard to Hawaii had been written to allow a baby
receiving state documents to be declared a Citizen of the United States
without being subject to the Jurisdiction of the United States:

A person born in Hawaii on or after
August 12, 1898, and before April 30, 1900, is declared to be a citizen
of the United States as of April 30, 1900. A person born in Hawaii on or
after April 30, 1900, is a citizen of the United States at birth. A
person who was a citizen of the Republic of Hawaii on August 12, 1898,
is declared to be a citizen of the United States as of April 30, 1900.

Missing from this US Statute is the following which appears in the 14th Amendment:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

This disparity created a legal loophole
which is specific to Hawaii: A child born in Hawaii, regardless of
whether or not they were born in the state and subject to the
Jurisdiction of the United States, automatically gained US Citizenship.
This is the only state in the United States where this condition
existed. This is why Hawaii is so vitally important to Obama, and could
explain why it is important enough to forge birth documents for. It is
why Obama's birth is being alleged to have occurred there instead of
somewhere like Washington State or elsewhere, and is so vitally
important.

Obama, by being born in Hawaii, got
automatic citizenship status in the United States without regard for
whether the United States had jurisdiction over his citizenship.
Otherwise, his citizenship would have legally followed his father's,
British, as Barack himself admitted on his "Fight the Smears" website
during the '08 campaign.

And it only took a witness signature to
gain it. It is unknown how many children gained U.S. citizenship through
this means. The real citizenship status of these individuals is
similarly unknown, and now that it has been discovered that Barack Obama
has put forth a forged Hawaiian Birth certificate, his own proof of
birth in the state is subject to serious questions by law enforcement
officials.

Months before the election of 2008
Barack Obama began deliberately directing public attention to his
Hawaiian Records. The Obama campaign, before redirecting the site to "Attack Watch" maintained the "Fight the Smears"
website which can still be found on archival websites. The Obama
campaign posted the candidate's "short Form" birth certificate with the
following information from FactCheck.com:

"When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug.
4, 1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the
United Kingdom's dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr.
was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The
British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of
Obama Sr.'s children.

Since Sen. Obama has neither renounced
his U.S. citizenship nor sworn an oath of allegiance to Kenya, his
Kenyan citizenship automatically expired on Aug. 4, 1982."

The campaign obviously wanted public attention directed at his birth documents in Hawaii.

The campaign itself created the entire
birth certificate controversy, and acted to maintain and fan the flames
of that controversy for several truly simple reasons. As long as the
public was wondering about what being born under "the British
Nationality Act of 1948" meant, and the birth certificate "birther"
controversy in general, they were not looking into laws which would have
legally prevented the senator from assuming the role of candidate and
then President. Legal cases such as Minor V. Happersett.

This case was, and still is, of
tremendous import. Had it been found during the campaign it would have
prevented his candidacy, certainly preventing him from taking the oath
of office in Jan 2009.

So a campaign to hide Minor V. Happersett was undertaken at the same time.

Justia

Justia.com
is a free legal internet research site with a specific, dedicated
Supreme Court of the United States server containing nearly every
Supreme Court case in American history. It is specifically marketed to
law students, non-profit agencies, startup businesses, small businesses
and private internet researchers. In short, those who cannot afford
either a lawyer or the thousands of dollars a year required by
subscription legal search engines such as LexisNexis and WestLaw. Justia
leverages the Google Mini internal search engine, and through this,
Google.com itself increasing its visibility on nearly any search of
American law. Justia.com is owned by Obama supporter Tim Stanley, and
began a systematic scrubbing of Minor V. Happersett in
the summer of 2008, erasing the name and specific text quoted from the
case, along with specific citations to it out of dozens of Supreme Court
cases which cited it over 138 years of American Supreme Court History.
The controversy was dubbed "JustiaGate".

The author of this article personally documented and published the scrubbing done by Justia, documented the failure of Tim Stanley's explanation for the "errors", and assisted in the research which connected Justia.com to Public.Resource.Org, where Stanley is on the board of
directors. Public.Resource.org is the source of Supreme Court materials
in data form Justia.com receives for publication. Public.Resource.org is
owned and run by Carl Malamud, and funded in part by the Center for
American Progress once run by John Podesta, and funded by George Soros.
This is a direct connection to the Soros Foundation, a major source of
political donations to Barack Obama and the Democrat Party.

Justia erased "Minor v. Happersett"
along with text quoted from the case out of its Supreme Court servers
deliberately in an effort to minimize the ability of the public to find
the case by searching for it, significantly reducing its apparent
importance.

These two separate efforts, raising the
profile of the Senator's birth certificate in as controversial a manner
as possible, while minimizing the legal role of Minor v. Happersett
succeeded. Barack Obama was able to illegally win the election, and
illegally take office. It was stolen right in front of the American
public.

The house of cards is about to come
tumbling down around Barack Obama's ears as the momentum of evidence
builds. Law enforcement has found his birth documents to be "highly
suspect" as a forgery. His draft card has similarly been found by law
enforcement as being "highly suspect" as a forgery. The smoke screen
cover created by his birth certificate, hiding Minor v. Happersett in a
shadow of false mockery, has been blown away. Leaving the Supreme Court
case alone on the stage, glaringly exposing Barack Obama as an usurper,
an unconstitutional President of the United States.

The American Press is deliberately
hiding the evidence published on the internet about this defrauding of
the American public and the deliberate evisceration of the Constitution
of the United States. It is hiding Barack Obama's Fraud as it has been
revealed by a Sheriff in Arizona. The silence of the American press
would be unbelievable if it weren't so blatantly obvious.

It is nearly as egregious as the audacity of Obama's fraud itself.

Dianna Cotter is a Senior at
American Military University, a 4.0 Student, the recipient of the
Outstanding Student Essay of 2009, a member of Delta Epsilon Tau and
Epsilon Pi Phi Academic Fraternities and on the Dean's and President's
Lists for academic achievement. She has published at Examiner.com, in American Thinker, Accuracy in Media, and Family Security Matters.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Fate Of A Nation, And The West, Might Hinge On Super Tuesday

Many
people are looking to the many primary elections on March 6 — "Super
Tuesday" — to clarify where this year's Republican nomination campaign
is headed. It may clarify far more than that, including the future of
this nation and of Western civilization.

If a clear winner with a commanding lead emerges, the question then
becomes whether that candidate is someone who is likely to defeat Barack
Obama. If not, then the fate of America — and of Western nations,
including Israel — will be left in the hands of a man with a lifelong
hostility to Western values and Western interests.

President Obama is such a genial man that many people, across the
ideological space, cannot see him as a danger. For every hundred people
who can see his geniality, probably only a handful see the grave danger
his warped policies and ruthless tactics pose to a whole way of life
that has given generation after generation of Americans unprecedented
freedom and prosperity.

The election next November will not be just another election, and the
stakes add up to far more than the sum of the individual issues.

Moreover, if re-elected and facing no future election, whatever
political constraints may have limited how far Obama would push his
radical agenda will be gone.

Best Candidate?

He would have the closest thing to a blank check. Nothing could stop
him but impeachment or a military coup, and both are very unlikely. A
genial corrupter is all the more dangerous for being genial.

The four remaining Republican candidates have to be judged not simply
by whether they would make good presidents, but by how well they can
cut through Obama's personal popularity and glib rhetoric to alert the
voters as to the stakes in this year's election.

Ron Paul? Even those of us who agree with much of his domestic
agenda, including getting rid of the Federal Reserve System, cannot
believe that his happy-go-lucky attitude toward Iran's getting a nuclear
weapon represents anything other than a grave danger to the whole
Western World.

Rick Santorum has possibilities, but can he survive the media's
constant attempts to paint him as some kind of religious nut who would
use the government to impose his views on others? And, if he can, will
he also be able to go toe-to-toe with Obama in debates?

I would not bet the rent money on it. And what is at stake is far bigger than the rent money.

Mitt Romney is the kind of candidate that the Republican
establishment has always looked for, a moderate who can appeal to
independents. It doesn't matter how many such candidates have turned out
to be disasters on election night, going all the way back to Thomas E.
Dewey in 1948.

Choice Is Gingrich

Nor does it matter that the Republicans' most successful candidate of
the 20th century — Ronald Reagan, with two consecutive landslide
victories at the polls — was nobody's idea of a mushy moderate. He stood
for something. And he could explain what he stood for. These may sound
like modest achievements, but they are very rare, especially among
Republicans.

Newt Gingrich is the only candidate still in the field who can
clearly take on Barack Obama in one-on-one debate and cut through the
Obama rhetoric and mystique with hard facts and plain logic.
Nor is this just a matter of having a gift of gab. Gingrich has a far
deeper grasp of both the policies and the politics than the other
Republican candidates.

Does Gingrich have political "baggage"? More than you could carry on a
commercial airliner. Charges of opportunism have been among the most
serious raised against the former Speaker of the House. But being
president of the United States is the opportunity of a lifetime. If that
doesn't sober a man up, it is hard to imagine what would.

Does any of the Republican candidates seem ideal? No. But the White
House cannot be left vacant, while we hope for a better field of
candidates in 2016.

We have to make our choice among the alternatives actually available, of which Obama is by far the worst.

“Those who want to concentrate on the baggage in Newt
Gingrich’s past, rather than on the nation’s future, should remember
what Winston Churchill said: ‘If the past sits in judgment on the
present, the future will be lost.’ If that means a second term for
Barack Obama, then it means we’ve lost, big time.” - Thomas Sowell

The Introduction

There’s more to picking a Presidential candidate than just
conservative platitudes. A President must be a statesman. And to have
become President, one has to have earned their credentials. A credential
is a specific qualification or achievement that shows you are
qualified. A record of achievements. Unique attributes. Evidence or
testimonial which bearer’s competence. In picking a President, my
candidate has to have an orderly worldview, clarity of vision, proven credentials, and ability to lead and motivate the majority with conviction.

Gingrich ran the House as Speaker from 1995 to 1999 and was Minority
Whip from 1989 to 1995. His accomplishments in government dwarf anything
his rivals have managed to achieve nationally. When Newt became Speaker
in 1995 congressional approval was about 20%. When he left the
Speakership four years later, it was about 60%. Now it’s 11%. When Newt
left the Speakership, the national debt was about $3 trillion. Now, its
$15 trillion. When Newt left the Speakership, unemployment was 4.2%.
Now, its roughly 9.0% for three years standing.

The crowd who are excoriating Gingrich are the exact same misfits
that helped add $12 trillion to the debt, driven-down congressional
approval to 11% and increased unemployment by a staggering 5%. Why do I
care what the hell these people have to say? Who are they to deride
Gingrich’s lack of leadership when they have showed none themselves?
They’ve shunned conservative policy for over a decade, and favored
Beltway influence-peddling at the expense of the people long after
Gingrich exited. Gingrich’s agenda is a serious threat to the central
planning mentality that permeates the ruling elite inside the beltway.

The Credentials

As a congressman, Gingrich was a Reagan Coalition member and Reagan
Revolution fighter. As Speaker, he led the Republicans to their first
House majority in over 40 years and the GOP finally broke the New Deal
coalition that had dominated American politics for more than a
half-century, moving policy substantially to the right for our nation.
We all benefited as a result. This Reagan, Gingrich, Republican
majority-aligned coalition also directly led to the eventual downfall of
the Soviet Union.

As Speaker, he allied himself with Ronald Reagan to build the Reagan
Coalition, the Religious Right and led his new Republican majority (the
Republican Revolution) to pass the Contract with America, cut the
deficit, cut taxes, reformed welfare, blocked Clinton’s agenda including
HillaryCare, balanced the budget four years running, and extended the
great, long-standing Reagan economy throughout the nineties. By
comparison, Romney, a one-term MA Governor, vehemently denied Reagan;
aligned himself with Ted Kennedy; and lost the most legislative seats
for Republicans in MA since the Civil War.

Gingrich’s pro-life voting record is sterling at 98.6%, 70 out of 71
votes, and twice helped pass the end of partial-birth abortion in
Congress, before Clinton vetoed it; a true encouragement for anyone who
cares about babies being protected in the womb. His lifetime rating from
the American Conservative Union rings in at 90%. And the National
Taxpayers Union’s Annual Scorecard on reduced spending and taxes gave
Gingrich an “A”,
for his last four years in office, ranking him #1, #4, #2 and #11 and
as one of the most conservative members in Congress for the Republican
party.

Of all candidates, Gingrich’s record “stands alone” in his policy
achievements and successful leadership portfolio. During his
Speakership, a blistering 11 million jobs were created (nearly 3 million
per year), $400 billion in debt was paid off, 60% of welfare rolls were
reduced, and taxes were cut for the first time in sixteen years –
including the largest capital gains tax in history. That’s an immovable
fact. Taken together, as a Reagan conservative, Gingrich has already proven his high office credentials as U.S. House speaker.

Gingrich’s 21st Century nine-point “Jobs and Prosperity Plan” borrows a page from Reagan’s 1980 economic platform. It is not just Reaganesque, it is Reaganomics,
cryogenically frozen in 1981, thawed 30 years later, and pumped full of
Newt-style steroids in order to save the American people from our
nations slow systemic job growth. The pro-growth, pro-job, economic
recovery plan features massive tax cuts, less government spending
(through privatization of entitlement programs), interest-rate hikes,
and rampant deregulation.

Gingrich, who blames excessive regulation for the 2008 financial
crisis, also wants to advance Reaganomics by repealing the Dodd-Frank
and Sarbanes-Oxley laws governing the financial sector. He would
reorient the Federal Reserve entirely toward taming inflation, axing the
pursuit of full employment from its congressional mandate. He would cut
spending by fundamentally restructuring safety-net programs, turning
Medicaid into block grants to states and allowing Americans to opt into
privatized accounts for Medicare and Social Security, eventually phasing
out payroll taxes in the process.

The foundation is classic supply-side, trickle-down, Laffer-curve
economics, which Gingrich’s economic advisers predict will unleash a
Reagan-like boom that will eventually generate enough tax revenue to
balance the federal budget. Gingrich calls for a Balanced Budget
Amendment; and would move to zero-based budgeting, where every dollar
must be justified domestically and in foreign aid; and his plan outlines
how he’ll cut government waste, inefficiency and duplication all across
the board. Notably, anyone planning to introduce ‘Lean Six Sigma’ into
government is serious about slicing the bureaucracy.

Finally, no other candidate has listed a Day One Plan. As part of his 21st Century Contract with America,
Gingrich has pledged to issue a series of Executive Orders to create
jobs and help undo the damage of the Obama administration on the first
day of his administration. Altogether, one could reasonably expect a
President Gingrich to lead America in a pro-growth, limited government
direction who understands the significance of the founding principle
that we were created equal by our Creator (God) and endowed with certain
unalienable rights.

The Attributes

Gingrich has a keen understanding of our nation’s history, including
its founding. No candidate in the race can match Gingrich’s career
advocating and achieving conservative reforms in government. And, no
candidate has led a national movement in electing a Republican majority.
Credentials matter. Our nation is in crisis. And Gingrich, a
transformational leader, is uniquely prepared to turn over the rotten
apples cart. As Rev Jim Garlow, pastor of Skyline Wesley in San Diego
elegantly notes,

Been vetted. Gingrich has his definite
weaknesses, but so did Reagan. Based on what we know, he has walked
through the biblical steps of forgiveness. Gingrich’s ‘baggage’ is well
known – both positively and negatively; marital history; Pelosi couch;
Heritage mandate to sword-off HillaryCare; and we all know it is
relevant. Voters will have to weigh these against his good virtues. But,
as Thomas Sowell warns: “voters should recognize Gingrich’s “concrete accomplishments” over his ‘personal life’ baggage.”

Intellectual depth and breadth. Even his
critics stand in awe of his capabilities. No other candidate is as
intellectually sound. His breadth and depth of knowledge of history and
politics markedly transcends his opponents. His knowledge has brought
wisdom. We need wisdom. His keen intellect is a gift from God.

Historical understanding. A knowledge of
history makes one wise. His grasp of history and the constitution gives
him an enormous advantage in understanding the solutions to today’s
problems. “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat
it.” If Gingrich can supplement his intellectual gravitas with a
deliberate, solid moral compass — his presidency could spark a rebirth
of the principles of American liberty.

Achieved “elder statesman” status.
Statesmanship conveys a quality of leadership that inspires – bringing
people together. A nation so traumatized by weak leadership, how can
anyone dispute the mans knowledge of the issues, history of the issues
from an American historical context, and his 21st

Century solutions.

Knowledge of Washington, DC. We need
someone who cannot be “bullied” by the system but rather someone who
will ‘bully’ the system. Washington, DC is brutal. And Gingrich is a
hard-charging warrior. An outsider, Gingrich understands Washington and
should be measured by the list of enemies he’s made among the
establishment. What good is having a solid, constitutional, pro-life,
pro-marriage, Christian president in the White House, if one is unable
to move legislation and dismantle bureaucracies. He has the credentials
to navigate Washington DC.

Communication skills. Reagan did not speak
to the core of conservatives. Reagan spoke his conservative principles
to the core of America as a whole. Reagan had a gift for optimism. He
always spoke of the future. Reagan communicated wide-reaching ideology
and complex policies in terms ordinary people could understand. No one
has the capacity to think through issues and articulate them better than
Gingrich. I would rather have a leader who is vast with ideas, than the
total lack of solutions that we’ve experienced from our leaders in both
parties for years.

A yearning for American Exceptionalism.
There are nearly 200 nations with constitutions. Only one nation has
sacred documents that specifically state that our rights are given by
our ‘Creator’ to “We The People”. We need a compelling leader who can
march us back to greatness. Americans have long embraced a notion of
superiority; the “shining city upon a hill” that Ronald Reagan
described. Our American values and our history are unique and worthy of
universal admiration. Gingrich is able to articulate ‘the psychology of
optimism’ considerably better than any elected official I have seen
since Reagan.

An understanding of moral differences. It
is no longer a case of “right vs. left” but “right vs. wrong.” Marriage
does not seek a new definition. Tearing up a baby in the womb is not
“left.” It is wrong. Stealing funds from future generations and spending
it is not “left.” Its wrong. The 9th Circuit Court’s removal of “under
God” from the Pledge of Allegiance is not merely “left.’ It is wrong. Gingrich understands the moral component and the perils of our rapidly disappearing freedom and he grasps the threat posed by loss of religious liberty.

An understanding of war. America is in a
moral and economic war. A war that will determine whether America, as
she was conceived, survives free expression of the will of the people,
or ideas imposed on the nation from an elite. In war, one needs a
sophisticated warrior, one who understands the nature of fighting and
winning – and losing. Gingrich is that warrior. He is a warrior made for
this war. Failure to grasp this one key issue could cost us our future.

Churchillian fortitude. We face serious
dual enemies: the radical left secularist and radical Islam, both with
the capability of destroying our historic America. The left has almost
succeeded. Gingrich is right by seeing the dual dangers. Few seem to grasp it.
But he does. We need a president who will not waver. Churchill was
flawed, as are all people. But Churchill was needed by Britain, just as
America now needs Gingrich’s leadership. We must have a Winston
Churchill.

Most Electable Conservative. Most Liberals
will hate him, but the Tea Party and taxpayers won’t; the lovers of
liberty, guardians of life and defenders of national security will
support him. As the non-Romney conservative candidates fall-off and
consolidate, Newt’s numbers will rise. Gingrich has appeal in the GE
because he stands for ideas and results at a time when both parties have
failed. He is the only candidate who can both beat Romney and Obama —
and who has a proven track record as a conservative. Reagan proved it
beyond any doubt; given a leader who can espouse conservative principles
clearly and unapologetically, those “independents” will flock to him.
Romney would suppress conservative and evangelical turnout in GE.

The Challenges

There should be no objection to the cataloguing of any candidate’s
failings, and Newt has certainly made his share of mistakes, just as
Reagan did, but they are far outweighed by his unique gifts. Gingrich
has taken positions and done things in his personal life I don’t agree
with, but to his credit he has been transparent, has shown humility, and
a willingness to continue to be transparent. I trust a man who has made
mistakes, and publicly expressed his regret for them, more than I trust
a man, who conceals his past. Obama concealed his past in 2008. We see
the same in Mitt Romney in 2012.

Establishment Republicans, who benefit from business-as-usual in
Washington, fear a great ideas-based crusade that builds a national
citizens movement behind reducing the scope and intrusiveness of the
government. They’re worried about losing influence, power and privilege.
While party-elite insiders claim Gingrich is “of the establishment” and
“hated by the establishment,” those same insiders know he is capable of
having a closer relationship with the American citizen than the present
party members. Newt, by his nature, will not toe the Establishment
line.

Many don’t know that a large reason Gingrich is despised by the Republican Establishment is because, when he was speaker, he appointed people
to leadership positions that he felt were the best candidates to help
accomplish his goals – going over the heads of the Establishment
Republicans who felt that it was “their turn”. He also ignored the
‘entrenched old-timers’ advice to “go it slow” and went full throttle.
Did he get things done? Yes. Did he ruffle lots and lots of feathers in
the process? Yes. Gingrich does not toe the party line.

The 2012 battlefield is not against Obama. His record is
indefensible. Struggling families don’t need reminding how they feel.
The war will be won or lost against the biased left-leaning media, which
prop Obama up. That is where the war will reside. What candidate
understands that the media is not their friend? As Romney opines he’ll
work well with ‘good Democrats,’ Gingrich challenges the premise of the
questions that the biased media asks. Just as Reagan knew the enemy was
the media so does Gingrich. And Newt, like Reagan before him, does not
shrink from the attack.

The Summary

In an election where the imperative is to repeal Obamacare, Gingrich
is the candidate who defeated Hillarycare. In an election where
unemployment is 9%, Newts credentials are 4.2%. In an election where
spending needs to be reined-in, Gingrich is the candidate who last
balanced the budget. By his past accomplishments, he understands these
issues better than any other candidate. Gingrich led the friendly forces
to victory and he was the target of the enemy forces to defeat. None of
that is even in dispute.

For too long, as a center-right nation, we have allowed the voice of
our frustration go unchallenged as some judicial court just removed the
nativity scene from the courthouse lawn. Not Gingrich. Laying out the
constitutional and philosophic wrongness of the underpinnings of that
removal, Gingrich “cuts off the enemy at the knees.” And yet some, when
the warrior comes to our defense, condemn the protector. Part of
Reagan’s pledge to get government off the backs of the people included
returning the courts to what he deemed their proper and limited
constitutional roles, as Gingrich has: “Bringing the Courts Back Under the Constitution.”

For the reasons set forth, only someone trying to distort a persons
record for political expediency could argue Gingrich is not a
conservative. To call Newt a “Progressive” or “frugal socialist” when
his actual record of national accomplishments utterly dwarfs other
candidates in the race – strikes me as beyond absurd. I gladly dissent
from those who can’t debate the merits of a man in the context of historical accuracy. The obsession with personal past deeds and purity is to distract the discussion from present day crisis that America now faces.

The next President will fill 3 or 4 vacancies on the Supreme Court;
repeal Obamacare; balance the budget; cut the size and scope of
government; and tackle tax-code, border security and entitlement
reforms. Gingrich is a bona-fide change agent who said he wants to
slenderize government “fundamentally,” “historically” and
“categorically.” He knows his path to greatness is to dismantle the
nanny state socialism that has permeated Washington and return our
nation to “Americanism” “Exceptionalism” and true “Capitalism.” The
country is looking for a bold leader.

This is not just another election. This is it. The stakes are high. Credentials matter.

Gingrich’s overall record shows he has done more to advance the
cause of conservatism across our nation than any of his opponents. He
recognizes the threats to America from without and within, and is
unafraid to tell the truth. Gingrich is stern, intelligent, and
experienced with the fortitude we need as the next leader of this
country. The GOP establishment is scared of Gingrich just as they wanted
no part of Ronald Reagan. He is a man who isn’t restrained by
Washington convention, but who instead has consistently bucked custom to
get things done.

To date, Gingrich is the only American politician who committed to
balancing the federal budget and succeeded. I can’t imagine anyone who
would bring the intellectual vigor and conservative agenda to the table
as Gingrich would. I have absolutely no fear that a President Gingrich
will lead the country in a conservative direction starting in 2013.
Please read: Electability: Newt Gingrich.
Below is one of the most profound speeches I’ve ever listened to. With
no teleprompter, his delivery is effortless, with clarity of thought.
From Nov 2009:

Translate This Blog

Followers

Subscribe To

Search This Blog

About Me

A Texan who loves the truth and hates the lying, cheating, and deliberate prevarication that characterizes so much of our civic discourse these days.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
RIPOSTE, n. 1. Fencing: a quick thrust after parrying a lunge 2. a quick sharp return in speech or action; counterstroke.
- The Random House Dictionary of the English Language...........
You can contact me by sending an email to me at: leorugiens23@gmail.com